The present invention relates to textured oil seed protein products and to an improved process for preparing them.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the food supply on this planet is limited. It is imperative that the food industry seek out and perfect technologies which more efficiently utilize and distribute our limited food supplies. One area of concern is that, especially in the Western cultures, people are becoming overly dependent upon meat as a source of protein in their diets. This is undesirable from the standpoint of efficient utilization of world food resources and may be undesirable as well from the standpoint of individual health.
Having recogbized that the production of meat protein is a highly inefficient manner of obtaining adequate dietary protein due to the very low conversion by animals of vegetable protein into proteinaceous flesh, the processed food industry has attempted to provide a variety of meat analogs and substitutes based at least in part on vegetable protein. A variegated array of processing technologies has evolved within the past few decades. Among these are protein fiber spinning, thermo-plastic extrusion, simple layering and heat setting and other techniques. A summary of these procedures is set forth in Gutcho, Textured Foods And Allied Products, copyright 1973, by Noyes Data Corp., Library of Congress Catalog Number 79-188403. All of these procedures have their advantages as well as disadvantages, and there remains a real need for further process development to achieve the process efficiencies and product varieties which will be necessary to alleviate the problems associated with a relatively constant food supply and an ever-increasing population.